


Summer Bittersweet

by Watergirl1968



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Crying, Illness, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Post-Canon, Sexual Content, rivarmin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 12:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17264516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watergirl1968/pseuds/Watergirl1968
Summary: Armin had lost all trace of roundness in his face. He slept, curled inside the crystal like a starved sprite, yellow hair suspended like gossamer in ice.Levi knelt beside the crystal, running his hands softly over it's surface. Armin was, to his eye, the most beautiful thing he would ever see, or ever know. His sun was setting, and he was only twenty-eight years old.





	Summer Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bittersweet story...it is pretty much full-blown angst, so if that's your thing...here is the chronicle of Armin Arlert's last days.
> 
> Please read the tags, gang!...this is sad stuff, and if that is not healthy for you right now, govern yourself accordingly.
> 
> This is the first piece in my 2019 Ficlet set...responding to tumblr prompts from pals. Enjoy!

The blade was old-school; blunt-ended and sharp enough to slice oxygen. It was levelled at Martin Dreyse's throat. Hitch Dreyse shut her eyes for a moment and reopened them. The scene had not rearranged itself; it was still Levi Ackerman, planted in a corner of the underground holding cell, one strong arm hugging a feeble, semi-conscious figure to his side.

His weathered face was as impassive as a shark's. Fetid steam rose from the iron grate in the floor; Levi had broken into the cell by way of Sina's sewer system.

The blade inched closer, pressing into young Martin's neck. Hitch's breath stuck in her slender throat like gruel. _This was why siblings should not be posted together._

"Sir," she took a step forward.

"Sir?" Levi snorted. The point of the blade tickled, and a red bead welled bright against the young recruit's pale throat.

"Levi, stop."

He wore thick oilskin trousers, a dark jacket made of some coarse stuff, and, peeking above its collar, a crisp cravat.

"Levi, you won't kill Martin. You don't want to kill him..."

"Huh," Levi's eyes flicked up and down the boy's length. "Brother?"

Hitch's belly unclenched a little. "Yes, my younger brother."

"Well, younger brother, you and your sister will remove your weapons, toss them this way, and shackle your feet together."

Martin's pistol clattered across the floor, skittering on the cement and finding a new home in Levi's waistband.

The pale figure that Levi was supporting, moaned faintly.

"Levi, let him go. He's..." Hitch put her feet together so her shaking brother could wind a chain around her ankles. "He's very sick. Commander Arlert is very sick. You're hurting him."

"No. _You_ are hurting him...keeping him locked down here in a cage for the last few months of his life. He's served Paradis impeccably and you leave him lying in his own piss, in pain."

"He is locked up," Hitch kept her tone level and patient, "he is restrained for his own safety, and the safety of others. He is often confused, and addled. Sometimes he doesn't know where he is. He needs to be kept..."

"Alive," Levi finished. "He needs to be kept alive, so that his inheritor might acquire the Colossal Titan, when the time comes."

Her eyes held deep sadness. "Yes."

"I'm taking him with me."

Hitch tried to rise and toppled over. "You can't!"

"I can, and I will. My relationship with this government has soured slowly…over this policy, that policy. Insurrectionists trumpet loudly until they need to make tough choices, between bad options and worse options. I've had enough.

So here I am, no longer _heichou_ , no longer a Survey Corps officer...just a common thief, living in the shadows. But," he sheathed his blade, pulling Martin's service pistol and cocking the hammer, "I still do believe that our titan weapons must be curated responsibly. Commander Arlert has always believed it as well. So," he stooped, lifting the prone figure over his shoulder and circling the two guards, "I will return, with Armin, on the appointed day, and the Colossal Titan will be passed on. Until that day, I am taking him. He's coming with me. Don't look for us - you won't find us. If you try to take him back, I will kill him first."

"Commander Hange won't stand for this."

"Hange knows that I always keep my word." Levi stepped backward. His maneuver gear hummed faintly, and then he disappeared down the hole from which he'd emerged.

__________

There was a carefree keening in the air, high and serene. Perhaps a cicada. A breeze shivered through leaves, mottling the insides of his eyelids. Armin shifted, the familiar, sour reek of his failing body banishing any possibility that he was dreaming.

He opened tired blue eyes. He'd lost much of the vision in his left eye. He lay inside an enclosed porch, tree branches ghosting against the worn wooden screens. The air was sweet, and warm.

He offered a tiny smile. "Levi."

"Shush," leathery fingers stroked the pale hair.

"I won't shush," Armin coughed. Slowly, he sat up. "What is this place?"

"I'm not going to tell you. If you don't know, then nobody can pry it out of your mind."

Armin looked about. Aside from the raised futon upon which he lay, the room contained a small table, a cabinet filled with bottles and flasks, shelves piled with immaculately-folded towels and blankets. There was a pitcher of water beside the bed.

Levi opened the wooden shutters to reveal the deep blue of a lake and a lazy summer afternoon.

Two soft chairs faced outward, for sunsets.

"Lovely," Armin said. "Should we have teacakes on the lawn then?"

Levi sat beside Armin on the bed.

"You took me?"

"I took you."

Armin drew a long breath, and exhaled. "I didn't imagine it then. You shackled Hitch and Martin?"

"Yes."

"And...are you really going to kill me?"

Levi leaned forward, nuzzling behind Armin's ear, kissing the nape of his neck. "What do you think?"

Armin raised a hand and covered Levi's with it. Armin was missing two fingers on his left hand, and the thumb on his right. Levi turned his head, tenderly kissing the little stumps where fingers used to be.

__________

"Can you walk?" Levi supported Armin as he stood.

Armin coughed. "I'll bloody well crawl if there is a bath at the end of this," he replied.

"Wait until you see..."

Armin tottered forward, wincing. "Come, just a little further..."

Armin stumbled. "Shit. Some days I can feel my own two feet. Today is not one of them..."

Levi lifted Armin into his arms. Armin nestled into the embrace, head limp against Levi's shoulder.

_He used to be so strong. Not as a boy, but certainly by age twenty-three, twenty-four...he'd filled out as a man and had abhorred any attempt Levi made to coddle him. He'd struggled madly and lustily in Levi's arms when they'd wrestled, demanding to be put down._

Levi rounded the corner of the small cottage and waded into a natural hot spring.

"Ohhh..." Armin came back to life as he was gently deposited into the warm pool. "Oh my, I know where we are now."

"Stop. No one will come. I will torch every tunnel leading to this place. I will scorch the earth."

"I'm so glad of a bath...I...didn't always get washed..."

He accepted a cloth offered by Levi. Drew it slowly up and down his arms, across his chest.

"I didn't expect to get so sick," he said quietly. "Others have had a clean death. I'm something of a reassembled rag-doll."

"Not to me."

Armin smiled, shaking his head.

Levi took the cloth from Armin, scrubbing gently at the bony shoulders, the frail back with it's knobby spine.

"I want to have the summer with you. I want these last few weeks to be just you and me."

Armin sighed. "I may not last that long," he said, "I need medicine now...just to be able to function."

"Yes. I know. And I've sent four of my gang to four different ports to steal exactly what you need."

"The ports are the first place the MP's will look for you. Ports and hospitals."

"Yes, exactly. And my thieves will steal very poorly; they will be followed and watched for weeks. And they will lead the authorities as far away from here as possible. I have a stash of medicine. I've been taking just a little, each time I have visited you. There is enough here."

"Huh," Armin smiled. He leaned back against Levi's chest, letting the warm water soothe the now-constant aches borne of his body's increasing failure to regenerate itself properly.

"I would say," he said, "that I don't want to burden you...that I don't want you to see me deteriorate further, or to see me when I'm out of my mind. But...I'm satisfied that I've acquitted myself with courage. I have done...the best I could. So…quite frankly, I would love to stay here with you for a little while - if you can remember me at my best…and not at my worst.

"You aren't dead yet."

Armin snickered. "You are right. Oh look! There's a pair of hawks, do you see them?"

Levi looked up into the summer sky, tears running down his seamed cheeks.

__________

Armin had been receiving _acculon_ , a formulation intended to promote cell regeneration and keep his organs functioning. It worked well, until it didn't.

He became unable to sit up; his breath laboured and shallow.

Levi lay beside Armin, fitting his strong body to the frail form, angrily admonishing the struggling heart not to give up it's fight.

Armin faded in and out; mumbling, fingers flexing as if clutching blades from an age-old battle.

Levi woke one night to find Armin curled in a ball, his body locked in cramp and spasm, sobbing into the bedding.

Levi panicked. He reached out, but his touch only provoked a cry of anguish. "Armin," he scrambled to his feet. "Armin..."

"Le....vi!" Armin wailed. "It hurts...I can't... _die_...I need...the inheritor..." and he wept inconsolably.

"Armin," Levi bent over his beloved, "Armin, sweetheart. You must harden yourself...one last time...and I will figure out the rest...can you hear me?"

The blue eyes flew open, unseeing. Levi pressed his forehead to the scorching brow. _Armin_ , he sent, Ackerman thought as powerful as his body, _Do this for me now. Now!_

A shudder...a rumble...steam hot enough to shear flesh. And then...there was Armin, curled inside of a rounded crystal, like a snow fairy preserved in ice.

Levi sat back on his heels, exhaling, fear sweat drying on his body, chilling him to his soul.

"Fuck," he swore softly. "Fuck."

__________

"I'm sorry," Commander Hange's voice was thick with exhaustion and irony. "Did you think you were being clever Levi, sneaking up on my blind side? Nobody has ever tried that before."

"Sorry," Levi said softly. He was above her, clinging to a metal fire escape like a spider.

"What's happened to Armin?" she asked.

"Aren't you going to rage at me?"

Hange stopped walking, droplets of rain spattering against the brick walls of the muddy alleyway near Survey Corps headquarters.

"What right do I have to rage at you? You may well ask why Armin was not lodged in the finest hospice...all of his needs met...with comforts and diversions...and company."

"The thought had occurred to me," Levi dropped to the ground.

"Armin unknowingly burned three people, very badly. His pain causes his body to attempt transformation. That cell was made of titan-hardened walls...it was the only place to contain him. It wasn't his fault."

Levi faced Hange. She'd aged; silver streaks like minnows flashing through her auburn hair.

"You left me!" Hange said bitterly.

"I thought you said you weren't going to rage at me."

"I never expected you to turn tail and run!"

"Not this again, Hange."

"I can't help it! Erwin meant for us both to finish this...you just left me! To deal with the Yeagerist government on my own, to deal with the royals, all of it. I'm so fucking tired and you run away to play cottage."

Levi froze.

_How could she possible know where he'd taken Armin?_

"Don't worry," Hange pulled her great coat tighter. "You covered your tracks. I had no idea where you were. Until now."

She leaned closer "I can smell the hot spring on you..."

Levi's eyes narrowed.

"Don't worry, this will stay between us."

Levi's shoulders slumped in relief. "Thank you. I really don't want to spend the next few weeks fighting off would-be rescuers."

Hange began to walk, keen eyes searching the rooftops and crannies for unwelcome ears. Levi fell into stride beside her.

"So, Four-Eyes…"

"Let me guess. The _acculon_ isn't working anymore."

"No. And I'm terrified he will die. I just want him to have a little time...if not at the seaside, then at the hot spring. I've been struggling to figure out if Jean should come? We can't risk losing the Colossal, through carelessness."

"No. Not yet. I will give you another drug. I've anticipated this stage. This will buy you some weeks...maybe a month. But..."

"What?" Levi snapped.

"After...when it is done...I need you back. This holiday spree of yours has lasted long enough. You've had your jollies pillaging ports and such. You have a duty, if not to me, then to Erwin's memory."

Levi glared at Hange for a long moment. "Fine," he acquiesced. "Deal."

__________

Armin had lost all trace of roundness in his face. He slept, curled inside the crystal like a starved sprite, yellow hair suspended like gossamer in ice.

Levi knelt beside the crystal, running his hands softly over it's surface. Armin was, to his eye, the most beautiful thing he would ever see, or ever know. His sun was setting, and he was only twenty-eight years old.

Armin was wearing his nightshirt, and, Levi noticed with bittersweet amusement, only one sock. The toes of the bare foot curled, clenched in pain. Levi reached across the floor, picking up the stray sock, pressing it to his face to stifle a sob. How easy it would be to just leave Armin like this; sleeping and still until the end of summer.

However, that was not what they'd agreed upon.

He pressed his forehead to the clear surface, gazing through it. _Armin! Wake for me, now!_

Nothing.

_ARMIN! Wake up, you little shit!!_

A deep rumble. Levi tasted steam and ash in his throat. The crystal fell away and he pulled Armin into his arms.

__________

 _"Allexin-complex-six,"_ Armin read the syringe. He laid it back in it's case, alongside ten other tubes.

"Well," he sighed, "It's worth a go, I guess. Go ahead, jab me..."

Levi poked the needle into Armin's thigh. Armin's tormented breathing eased. They slept.

__________

Three days later, Armin was able to walk to the hot spring by himself. He picked his way slowly across the porch, down the path and stepped into the water. He grinned hugely. He was now missing two teeth.

"I feel better!" he chirped.

"Good," Levi said indifferently. "You can cook the tea tonight."

"Fine," Armin quipped. "We're having toast and marmalade."

"Toast it is."

Armin stretched. He found himself able to draw a deep breath without pain. He'd gained strength in his limbs. He turned his small face up to the sun, drinking it in.

"Levi?"

"What?"

"Did you see Jean?"

When Levi didn't answer, Armin turned. "Levi, how is he?"

Commander Kirschstein had initially been ruled out as an inheritor; his value as a leader in human form had taken priority. However, two years prior, he'd fallen victim to a cracked facemask during a Marleyan gas attack. The gas attack had weakened his lungs, making him ill. Faced with the prospect of a foreshortened life, the government had reconsidered their stance; Jean was to inherit the Colossal Titan.

"I didn't see Jean," Levi replied. "But Hange said he is back at work, and doing well. Back to his regular salty self."

"Ah," Armin pulled himself out of the water and lay on his belly on a blanket. "Good."

Levi crawled out of the spring, flopping down beside Armin, watching the clouds pass overhead.

Absently, he ran a hand down the channel of Armin's spine. _Bump…bump…bump_ …and over the smoothness of the small backside and up again, _bump...bump...bump_ to the soft nape of Armin's neck.

He closed his eyes. The lush, late summer afternoon was humid and close; crickets bleated, the lake lapped idly against the stony shore.

Levi rubbed Armin's back soothingly, rhythmically. He traced slow circles on his bottom, around and around, spirals, first one cheek and then the other.

Armin made a soft sound.

Levi opened one eye. Armin's face was turned toward his, a gentle heat burning in the blue eyes.

"Hmmm," Armin sighed. "I like that...."

Levi held Armin's gaze, felt himself suspended. His fingers circled...circled...his palm opening, cupping Armin's bottom, squeezing softly.

"At first, I fought so hard not to want you," Armin said quietly. "It felt like the worst kind of misdemeanor. I was convinced that what I felt was respect, which had gotten overblown into some sort of strange crush."

Levi's fingers ghosted along the inside of Armin's thighs. "You became very curt with me, very unfriendly for many months," Levi responded.

"I was trying," Armin gasped as fingers found tender flesh, "I was trying to restore professionalism...to...put things back the way they'd always been..."

"I was hurt, actually."

"No, you weren't."

"Yes," Levi was stroking him as gently as possible, "I was hurt. You ought to say sorry, before you croak."

"Oh," Armin made a plaintive sound in his throat, shuddering.

"Are you okay? Am I hurting you?"

"No," Armin panted. "No..." he rolled onto his back, gooseflesh rippling over his belly, pink cock twitching for attention.

The thick summer air cradled him, and Levi closed his hand gently around Armin's erection.

"If you are unhurt," Levi pressed, "then really you should say sorry for putting me off," he stroked slowly, "when all I wanted was to know the fine man you had become..."

Having no future for which he needed to preserve his dignity, Armin moaned with abandon, a small, hoarse cry with each stroke of his cock.

"O...kay," he capitulated, "I'm...sorry...I'm sorry...I offended...you..."

"Good," Levi smiled. "and I am sorry, too."

His hand slowed. Armin closed his three-fingered hand around Levi's wrist. "Nothing...has ever felt...so good..."

Levi lowered his head, kissing Armin's belly, which was distended by drugs and organ failure. "Look how fat you are," Levi teased. "A fat little officer. What a surprise..."

Armin squirmed. Then, he felt the wet warmth of Levi's mouth teasing the tip of his cock. "Levi," he moaned..."my love...my love..."

Levi took him into his mouth slowly.

After months of illness, alone and bereft of touch except for Levi's sporadic visits, Armin revelled in the intimacy and the memories, hands fisting in Levi's dark hair. "We…were so good...so good...when we f-finally found one another…ah…ah…all we did was fuck...oh, god, how we fucked..."

Armin came then, lost in visions of Levi embracing him, pinning him down, pushing inside of him, whispering in a thick, heated voice that was for Armin's ears alone.

He drifted back down, into his broken body, into the summer heat and musky sweat. Levi was still, peaceful.

"I could do you, now," Armin offered. "It might be nice. I have fewer teeth now..."

Levi laughed aloud. "Aren't you tired?"

"Not overly."

Then here...give me the hand you can still close...touch me...just like that..."

__________

Armin improved a little more; he was able to walk down to the spring each day to swim, and often sat in the garden, reading or studying the birds and insects.

"Why do you read so voraciously?" Levi wanted to know.

"So that Jean will _know_ things, Levi, when he gets my memories. Jean doesn't read much."

Levi tried to tempt him with morsels of his favourite foods, and Armin would try a few bites, to placate Levi.

"Sasha," Armin said out of the blue one evening, "Sasha was always so hungry...I can't even imagine what a voracious titan she'd have been, eating all of the cows from Dauper to Shiganshina..."

In the evenings, they played chess; Armin either falling asleep and forfeiting, or besting Levi.

One night it rained, droplets drumming in random syncopation upon the cottage roof. Levi held Armin close, lips against the soft hair, silent tears choking him.

_I'm not ready...I'm not ready...not yet...please, not yet..._

Morning dawned, the sky a stainless blue. August had slipped into September.

Levi woke to find Armin dressed, his uniform hanging off of his emaciated frame as though he were a child.

"Levi," he said softly, "It's time."

Levi clenched his jaw, his fists. Glared at Armin. "You are still managing." he said tightly. "You are still enjoying your life."

"Exactly," Armin said gently. "I want to go now, while I still have my dignity..." he looked at his misshapen hands, "I can feel the Colossal stirring," he whispered. "It's as though it doesn't want to _leave_...as though I could transform at any moment...I could ruin everything, unless I go now, while I have the strength to do it properly."

"No."

"Yes."

Levi began to shake. "Maybe you will live longer? Perhaps the lifespan isn't the same for everyone. Maybe this new drug..."

"It's time. Let's go. We want Jean to receive good memories of me...right?"

Levi knelt then, pressing his forehead to Armin's, willing him to feel all the love that he possessed.

_Can you feel that?_

_Of course. Right through to my bones._

__________

Armin hated pomp and circumstance. Nonetheless, no good deed goes unpunished, and he found himself alighting from the carriage to immaculate rows of soldiers, all offering their hearts to the Commander that had brought peace to their island nation.

"Oh," he said softly.

_Not a cave, he'd requested. I don't want it done in a cave. Outside. In the morning._

The sacrificial rock was too much of a climb. He was borne smoothly up to the top of it by Mikasa and Levi.

He'd indicated that shackles would be unnecessary, and yet, at the end, he'd panicked, squirming until the Ackermans had restrained his thin arms and legs. Then, the madness had left his eyes, calm lucidity returning.

He'd knelt quietly, singing softly to himself.

Levi had refused to leave the altar rock, cradling Armin from behind. "Go to sleep now sweetheart," he'd whispered, "Armin, close your eyes, just go to sleep."

Jean's titan loomed, majestic, and better-controlled than any before it.

 _Hey!_ Levi's eyes, bright with agony, bore into the titan's. _Do it quickly. No pain. And don't miss._

 


End file.
